Israel: Airborne High Power Laser Weapon test
An evening pause: I’m not sure if this fits as an evening pause, but the engineering is startling, and has ramifications both good and bad, for the future. The first half of the video shows the test, the second half explains it.
Israelis are surrounded by neighbors dominated by a culture that wishes to kill them all. They need this kind of defense, especially because the world will no longer defend them against this threat of genocide. In fact, many of our ruling “intellectual” class celebrate that possibility.
That they are forced to develop this technology sadly means that some bad actors will get it soon as well. The dark age is so fast approaching that it takes the breath away. That this is where we are, on the anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, is tragic beyond words.
Hat tip Jim Malamace.
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“The MK2 MOD 0 Solid State Laser”
USS Portland May 2021
https://youtu.be/GfdpH9QtKLI
10:48
on a lighter note…
Iron Man (2008)
“Tony Stark Was Able To Build This…..”
https://youtu.be/H4oHU3RXjiM
0:45
The US Navy has deployed a laser weapon system since 2014
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SEQ-3_Laser_Weapon_System
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyUh_xSjvXQ&t=35s
and while development continues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VAsu9P_iUQ
our enemies aren’t sleeping
https://youtu.be/M02ZqOS5_ec
Rheinmetall: High-energy laser effectors
30kW laser weapon demonstrator (2016)
https://youtu.be/PV3jfR-FUFc
10:13
I wonder if there is a way to combine different approaches. A special ack-ack shell where the chemical reaction shoots a laser pulse as the shell is sent on its way in a separate barrel.
WW2 – Avro Lancaster Crew Radio Chatter
https://youtu.be/MF5_hvE4WEA
9:44
special ack-ack shell where the chemical reaction shoots a laser pulse
Think big: Nuclear reaction shoots an x-ray laser pulse.
I’m impressed that they can hold a beam between two moving things. The laser is neat, but the targeting is stunning.
Yes, the targeting is cool, but it takes way too long to disable the target. Not useful until they get a quicker shot to kill time. Think hypersonic missiles . . .
T-DUB We’re talking first generation here – about where cannon were at the Battle of Crecy
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/07/2a/4a072adbd5ffbb7dbdec57cccc0e7f80.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8zSxCNunkGw/VPn6FNtfBrI/AAAAAAAABzs/7sbs-S48YLE/s1600/Early-example-of-cannon.jpg
https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1146/4729420234_21722281c7_b.jpg
Y’all might find this interesting … describes the tech now being employed in laser weapons., complete with a Pink Floyd reference …
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37775/how-the-once-elusive-dream-of-laser-weapons-suddenly-became-a-reality
But wait, there’s more … the second half of the interview, describing where this is going and where the obstacles are.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37646/laser-weapons-separating-fact-from-fiction
It amazes me that this concept has been completely forgotten!
https://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/abl/
That article does not cover the end of the project, this section indicates that the system WORKED, eleven years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1#Testing
So what’s the fuss here folks? All the tech the Elbit is using is based on the adaptive, and active optics technology developed in the 1990s for ground based stellar observatories that was invented to focus out atmospheric distortion when looking at STARS AND PLANETS.
The YAL-1 was HUGE because that optical tech required a HUGE nose turret to get it into the air! Please understand that the power of the laser doesn’t matter that much. What matters is the integrity of the BEAM when it reaches the target! The tech for adaptive and active optics was very 20 yrs ago when the YAL-1 system was designed. Theses mirror and lense systems can be made as small as a half dollar these days.
Combine that with the newer solid state lasers, which are now getting into the megawatt range and are much smaller, much lighter, than that massive COIL laser used in 2010 eleven years ago. Now if you have read the capabilities of the old COIL system they were able to maintain BEAM INTEGRITY at 250 MILES, direct-line-of-sight through atmosphere. Cool, now consider this paper,
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1018554.pdf which was published that same year 2010, which describes bouncing these weaponized beams off of Satellites!
So the YAL-1 was limited to 250 miles. I don’t think that was because of beam integrity. I think it was because from 40,000 feet 250 miles is about as far as you can go before you are at the horizon. If the relay system were deployed, … or if it is already deployed,… you don’t NEED 250 miles. All you need is about 150. You place your system on a TRUCK. You fire your laser upwards through about 75 miles of atmosphere, bounce the laser off of a satellite constellation, (most likely a cloud of small sats… oh jeeze MUSK and his thousands of small sats recently launched shows the capability), then the beam comes back to Earth ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET YOU NEED IT TO GO, through only another 75 miles of atmosphere, and suddenly there isn’t a ballistic missile launcher on EARTH that is safe from this kind of interception.
This was Eleven Years ago! The total engagement time for YAL-1 was 9 whole seconds. Way shorter than this Israeli system.
So here is the real horror story. The body of kinds of missiles successfully intercepted by YAL-1 are much tougher than say a Human Skull. Can something that small be targetted? Sure. I have a Google Earth picture of my HOUSE from about that time. My minivan is in the picture. On the Dashboard is an 8.5×11 sheet of paper. That picture shows that piece of paper on my dashboard through the windshield. Worse that than. The little distortion visible on the piece of paper is the folded down corner of that piece of paper. We have the satellite imagery necessary to target a human skull with such a laser. Probably take a lot less than nine seconds to burn into a skull.
We have had the technological know how to do this for over ten years now. And, we are only now getting worried?
Meet THOR
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-new-air-force-weapon-will-wipe-out-drone-swarms-with-the-push-of-a-button/ar-AAMYFb4?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531